Emil comments on V.A.T.S.

[aenemic]

is he basically pretty much confirming that the numbers you see when you use VATS is actually pure bull? like we've been told from a few sources now?

What bit are you getting that from?

"At the end of the day... screw the math, screw the numbers" - Emil

^ that, and all the talk about balancing VATS and making it fun. I can imagine a lot of people being desperately frustrated and giving up on VATS because they never successfully hit the target.

 

[betamonkey]

In Fallout 1/2 they mean "chance to hit". Straight up, nothing less, nothing more. CanardPC complained about getting two crits in a row with 5% chance to hit, and there have been mumblings before that VATS may also be tied to damage not just to-hit. You're saying this is not the case, mr Hines?

Is there a need to be scathing to forum members? Does it make you feel good? What makes you think the guy from Canard just didn't get lucky? Why does his account have to be the only true one? Because his review meets your opinion?

 

[Brother None]

^ that, and all the talk about balancing VATS and making it fun. I can imagine a lot of people being desperately frustrated and giving up on VATS because they never successfully hit the target.

His comment is too vague to draw a conclusion on, and the previews have all been based on impressions and contradicted each other. I think Bethesda has affirmed the percentage is the to-hit chance and that's something that's so clear-cut you can't really lie about it, so I'm not apt to take impressionistic evidence against it at face value. We'll see.

Is there a need to be scathing to forum members?

It...uh...was a joke? Sorry.

Why does his account have to be the only true one? Because his review meets your opinion?

Heh. Are you talking to aenemic? Because he actually concluded that. I don't agree with his conclusion.

 

[shihonage]

VATS numbers could mean one of these things:

1) chance to hit

2) damage % you do (but you always hit)

3) numbers that are put there for appearance of sophistication, which actually have no effect on what happens

4) some obscure "complex and innovative" formula that will come to bite them in the ass because players won't intuitively understand it

 

[Texas Renegade]

we do know that you can miss in VATS. so 3 is inaccurate.

But it is a good basic idea of things.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Once you play the game you will realize that real time is 'underpowered' by comparison. Sure, it's great for mopping up trivial enemies but when the shit hits the fan VATS will save your ass. I'd think of it more like going from realtime to turnbased in Tactics. When shit's easy you can go realtime and not really worry but when it's time to handle business then turnbased will be vital.

I played Tactics all the way through in RT without switching to TB and never had a problem. Regardless the fact remains that it's a balance issue. VATS is overpowered, it's a super shot mode rather than an aimed shot mode and there are no downsides to it because the downsides originally inherent to the system were frustrating to their playtesters so they removed them.

 

[pyrock]

Once you play the game you will realize that real time is 'underpowered' by comparison. Sure, it's great for mopping up trivial enemies but when the shit hits the fan VATS will save your ass. I'd think of it more like going from realtime to turnbased in Tactics. When shit's easy you can go realtime and not really worry but when it's time to handle business then turnbased will be vital.

I played Tactics all the way through in RT without switching to TB and never had a problem. Regardless the fact remains that it's a balance issue. VATS is overpowered, it's a super shot mode rather than an aimed shot mode and there are no downsides to it because the downsides originally inherent to the system were frustrating to their playtesters so they removed them.

You seem to be forgetting you can miss while in VATS and enemies can "super shot" you as well. Often using vats = a single or multiple normal attack(s).

 

[Ausir]

Tactics was balanced for RT. FO3 is balanced for using VATS.

 

[Cimmerian Nights]

You seem to be forgetting you can miss while in VATS and enemies can "super shot" you as well. Often using vats = a single or multiple normal attack(s).

If by "super shot" you mean nerfed, then yeah.

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=755135

Another thing we stumbled into, because time is moving forward, is that while you are watching an enemy react to getting shot in this great camera angle, your character can be getting mauled by another enemy. Really frustrating early on as we played it, so we do two things now: 1) depending on the camera chosen we essentially pause the rest of the world, and 2) we have a setting that dramatically reduces the damage the player takes during such an occurrence.

I have to think nerfing enemy attacks this way was totally unforseen which only proves that these guys are flying blind. They have no overriding design philosophy. Just make up cool shit up as you go along.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Tactics was balanced for RT. FO3 is balanced for using VATS.

Yeah... I guess... The problem I have with VATS is that instead of making it an aimed shot mode, it's a super shot mode (enemy damage reduction, more shots, more accurately, faster). Then there is the whole immobile, long, slow-motion cutscene that every VATS shot produces that shows off less than spectacular effects (they mostly talk about the violence) at bad camera angles (not always but often enough). It just seems poorly thought out (I think there's a seed of a good idea there) and executed.

 

[quasimodo]

The way I see it is VATS is the only thing keeping this game from playing like an FPS and that has to be a good thing.

I'm not going to play it at all unless it turns out to be a real RPG, but if I do play it anything that cuts down on the "twitch" will be much appreciated.

 

[betamonkey]

I have to think nerfing enemy attacks this way was totally unforseen which only proves that these guys are flying blind. They have no overriding design philosophy. Just make up cool shit up as you go along.

No, that only shows they played the game and saw it, felt it and adjusted it. That's a good thing. The last thing you want is a dev or designer to think his idea is the bees knees and must go in that way at all costs. Trust me, I know. Then you get that product out there and people are like 'oh my god this is terrible' and finally he gets the idea and the grunts are scrambling to reinvent it and patching it ultimately it goes out unpolished and people blast you for that and at that point you've lost them.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

I have to think nerfing enemy attacks this way was totally unforseen which only proves that these guys are flying blind. They have no overriding design philosophy. Just make up cool shit up as you go along.

No, that only shows they played the game and saw it, felt it and adjusted it. That's a good thing. The last thing you want is a dev or designer to think his idea is the bees knees and must go in that way at all costs. Trust me, I know. Then you get that product out there and people are like 'oh my god this is terrible' and finally he gets the idea and the grunts are scrambling to reinvent it and patching it ultimately it goes out unpolished and people blast you for that and at that point you've lost them.

That's exactly what they did. They didn't want to change VATS so they adjusted the world to work with VATS in VATS but not outside of VATS. It shows that the system is fundamentally broken and if the only fix you can think of is making enemies weaker when in VATS than they are normally, you need to reexamine VATS. Sometimes cool ideas can't be done because it's creator(s) can't figure out how to make it work right, this is one of those cases. Instead of going back to the drawing board or changing individual parts of it, they started changed everything else but it.

 

[betamonkey]

That's exactly what they did. They didn't want to change VATS so they adjusted the world to work with VATS in VATS but not outside of VATS. It shows that the system is fundamentally broken and if the only fix you can think of is making enemies weaker when in VATS than they are normally, you need to reexamine VATS. Sometimes cool ideas can't be done because it's creator(s) can't figure out how to make it work right, this is one of those cases. Instead of going back to the drawing board or changing individual parts of it, they started changed everything else but it.

They adjusted the way you take damage during the VATS playback. That's not changing the world, that's making it work. Enemies aren't weaker because you cannot do anything during the playback. It's a cinematic playback of what's already happened behind the scenes, it's just harder to die during the playback. But you are certainly not invincible.. quite the opposite. It's not an 'I win' button by any means. I see it as a unique idea that was made to work and nothing more. You may not like the principle of it, but the execution of it is actually quite clever compared to some of the crap that I've been tasked to test. And believe me, I know all about things being forced in despite not working well. VATS works very well for what it is. It's the one redeeming factor to Fallout 3 combat in my opinion. Of course it's about as RPGy the combat gets outside of skills affecting accuracy/damage in real time, but it still controls like an FPS. Which works... if you like FPS combat. Luckily you can VATS pretty much the whole game, which I will do if/when I rent/get the game.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

They adjusted the way you take damage during the VATS playback. That's not changing the world, that's making it work.

It's changing the world to make it kind of work instead of changing the system to work with the world.

Enemies aren't weaker because you cannot do anything during the playback. It's a cinematic playback of what's already happened behind the scenes, it's just harder to die during the playback.

Enemies are weaker during VATS because when they weren't, their slow ass static playback got the player killed. Now that's probably partially because people were using VATS as an "I win" button despite that not originally being what it was (there is the seperate [though related] question of how difficult the game will be and I've yet to be encouraged on this point). Still, the problem wasn't that enemies did too much damage, the problem was that the player was immobile which, when there were enough enemies, killed the player. If the problem was the enemies' damage then it would be a universal problem (RT and VATS) but it obviously wasn't.

But you are certainly not invincible.. quite the opposite. It's not an 'I win' button by any means.

I've yet to see anyone die in VATS but since I haven't watched that much gameplay, has anyone else seen anyone die in VATS?

You may not like the principle of it, but the execution of it is actually quite clever compared to some of the crap that I've been tasked to test.

I like the principle of it, it's the execution that's poor and sloppy.

VATS works very well for what it is.

I've read and seen a lot of problems with VATS so I'm not sure where you're getting "It works very well for what it is," from.

Of course it's about as RPGy the combat gets outside of skills affecting accuracy/damage in real time, but it still controls like an FPS.

It's the most RPGish combat gets in Fallout 3 but that doesn't mean that it isn't broken.

Luckily you can VATS pretty much the whole game, which I will do if/when I rent/get the game.

Maybe but Emil has said that it was not designed to be played that way. That said, maximizing the time spent in VATS seems to be the most powerful way to play from what I've read in previews.

 

[Oakraven]

ok im a bit bemused,

we have two people who have managed to play the game and are talkint about it?

I take it you have Xboxs?

(never mind) I think what they did was realise that with Vats letting you que up up to three acctions (or more) your bascialy stuck their untill the VATs plays out, so people chargeing you from the side or the back get free hits on you while your pinned their while in F1-2-T you could react to that situation with your next turn

but they missed the turn based bit where you would be stuck waiting on the other guys turn as they did the dirty back to you.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

I think what they did was realise that with Vats letting you que up up to three acctions (or more) your bascialy stuck their untill the VATs plays out, so people chargeing you from the side or the back get free hits on you while your pinned their while in F1-2-T you could react to that situation with your next turn

but they missed the turn based bit where you would be stuck waiting on the other guys turn as they did the dirty back to you.

There is nothing wrong with requiring the player to be mindful of their surroundings before shooting in a mode which not only allows them to make targeted shots but allows them to better observe their surroundings (particularly enemies in their surroundings). What you're doing is promoting sloppy play instead of making the player think and look around before taking action.

 

[entropyjesus]

ok im a bit bemused,

we have two people who have managed to play the game and are talkint about it?

I take it you have Xboxs?

I mentioned having played it on a friend's modded 360 in another thread, but yes I have a 360 as well as a PS3 and a PC. So my experience comes from the 360 version and I have no idea if the PC version's interface fares any better.

 

[Oakraven]

but they missed the turn based bit where you would be stuck waiting on the other guys turn as they did the dirty back to you.

There is nothing wrong with requiring the player to be mindful of their surroundings before shooting in a mode which not only allows them to make targeted shots but allows them to better observe their surroundings (particularly enemies in their surroundings). What you're doing is promoting sloppy play instead of making the player think and look around before taking action.

I think what happend is they realised that being pinned in place in Vats mode broke the FPS part of the game.

what Im wondering is if the NPCs get to "VATS players back". I remember in EQII with their "heroric oportunitys" in beta for a while it was cheesy easy to blow through mobs that were way over your level. (partly because at the time it was suposedly "optional")

 

[entropyjesus]

what Im wondering is if the NPCs get to "VATS players back".

Nope